


This Is the Role of Angels Who Have Begun to Defy God

by NicoleAnell



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-15
Updated: 2006-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleAnell/pseuds/NicoleAnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tells him, "I want to give you my soul."</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is the Role of Angels Who Have Begun to Defy God

I.

On the day the War of the Cylon Future was won, Caprica-Six felt very strongly that she needed to kill Gaius with her hands. This was not part of her mission. But neither was going back to B-movie-villain her way through a monologue of unrepentant confession, and that clearly hadn't stopped her.

This also had nothing to do with the young woman Gaius had fallen asleep next to with a wet condom still on, who would probably be crushed under a building by the end of the day. (This Six, to her credit, didn't feel a thing about that, not even petty happiness.) Among the reasons this did not bother Six was the fact she'd arranged a threesome for his birthday several months ago, sharing him for one night with a particularly kinky lapsed-faith Geminese woman. It later occurred to her that Gaius would use this loving gift, secretly, to justify his infidelity to her.

(This kind of digression is not something that is healthy for Caprica-Six to dwell on, especially now. _Especially_ now.)

The reason she needed to kill him, obviously, was that it needed to be over fast. This was a mercy, and nothing more. But still, it seemed far too important that she not take a gun. This would be done with her hands -- first the confession, and then the making-him-hold-still, and then the head-quickly-twisting-past-the-bone.

Nine months later there was still an Invisible Gaius inside her head, and he hated her for this more than anything else.

Six did not kill him on the day before, the last day that a change in his routine -- or a mysterious disappearance -- would set off last-minute alarms and maybe, with a little luck (bad luck) and chance (slim chance), jeopardize the entire project. So she made love to him knowing what was inevitable but not yet happening.

(Inevitable is really all death is, to everyone who is alive. Six is a philosophical model. She and Leoben drive the others up walls.)

Six had a very small window where her gratuitous act of mercy would be acceptable. She could kill him in her chic apocalypse outfit at the crack of dawn. She was ready and capable, having taken the life from something equally (more) helpless, who was quiet and content for a moment in her arms. She felt this strongly: killing Gaius was a sin which she needed to take directly onto her hands. Like the infant, it made what happened that day real. It made it _hers_.

This is what separates her from Gaius, she understands. Responsibility makes him afraid. He will make nothing his own.

(The Invisible Gaius in her head was on the fence. He mostly hated her for failing.)

......

II.

One day there was a human man drowned in the river walk mysteriously. Someone from the resistance. Sometimes they considerately stopped resisting and killed themselves -- _faith_. Gaius stood behind her in a black suit and passive expression. He said, "I'll tell you a secret. I wasn't thinking about you when I died. I know you think I was."

He went on, because he is Invisible Gaius in her head and exists to say too much or not enough. He said, "Even if a Six killed me -- well, you remember that possibility, don't you? Suppose I ran into one when I was fleeing. Maybe I saw your face last, regardless of your not going through with it yourself." He took a drag of an invisible cigarette. (Six never smoked with him, because there was a time when she didn't have nerves to calm.) "Still I wouldn't have been thinking about you," he said. "Sadly, no. And it's not because I didn't feel anything for you, darling. Please don't have a mood over this."

They drained the river quickly. They drained the man's body because some of the subjects at the Farms needed blood transfusions. Gaius watched her offer to pitch in. He watched her stand behind and observe, on the lookout for other insurgents, for a trap. He watched her get bored and finally give in to her imagination, reluctantly. The words he wanted, "What were you thinking?"

"The same thing every human thinks while they die." He blinked, said it slowly and with a touch of feigned emotion. "Please not yet."

"It's a tragic condition," muttered Caprica-Six, a name she did not give herself.

"The nature of being alive," Gaius mused. "You wouldn't understand."

She's predictable, Caprica-Six. She knows it. She also knows this Invisible Gaius, the figment she created and can't control, was thriving on her defensiveness. Figments as a rule can't suck or tease (at least, her figment has never met his) so they find pleasure in being irritating. She gritted her teeth and snapped, "I'm _alive_."

"Oh yes, I'm sure you are," he said dismissively, before returning to the topic at hand. "Now occasionally when there's time to suffer -- I'm sure I had some, by the way, thanks to you -- there are other standard themes. It hurts. I want my mother, my husband, my lords. I want to be held." He looked into her eyes suddenly, same even tone. "I don't see God."

She recognized that last one as something she thought, in a vague and curious sense, when she was transferring between bodies. It meant nothing.

Six has faith, like the dead man in the river. (This river is a geometrically perfect shape that flows from its center. It was created by man. It is a river because it believes it is one.) She believes in inevitability and design. That nothing is random, and chance is temporary.

The Invisible Gaius would talk about "the survivors" often, whom he must have been among for a short time of chaos and luck. Until the Centurions found him and shot him on the ground, or until they took him somewhere weeping and had no use for his blood type and burned his body, or until he ate grass and rainwater but still starved and caught pneumonia and suffered, suffocated, and his immune system wore away with fever and cancer and the story always ends the same way. He hates her for this. For not knowing his death in her bones, in her hands. For failing her role, for not sending him straight where he belonged.

He said, "I won't tell anyone, you know. It's all right. I never saw Him either, and I was _actually_ dying. Have I thanked you?"

Caprica-Six, a woman that her people named, kept a lookout for the dead man's friends. She did this because "I'm ignoring you" is a self-defeating statement. This Gaius is dangerous. Figments (hers has never met his) are impossible to distract by want.

She wants this one dead for all sorts of (petty happiness) reasons. It wouldn't be enough. She missed the small window where Gaius could have been hers. She cannot kill him with her hands now. She would strike air. And also, these are not the same hands.

......

III.

Sixty-one dissenters were executed on Gaius's birthday this year. In their room she wrapped herself in white satin like a present, and these things are unconnected.

On New Caprica, a planet that Gaius Baltar named, there is a building of Cylon Defense. They live there in a mahogany room, because they won't live in a tent, and because his old Colonial One plane was pipe-bombed shortly after all the orphans under 14 were re-located to education centers. (The resistance is strong. No one is choosing to drown.)

Gaius asked her once about her confession. "Why did you come back that morning?" She said that it was to prepare him, maybe. Make it easier.

He had to explain to her, "It didn't." She still can't understand why.

But she tells him the truth, that she also meant to kill him. She is very honest with him now. "That would've made it easier," she says again. "Not only for you."

(She does not touch the "with my hands" factor, which is insane and Sharon has told her so. This Six does not like to take responsibility anymore.)

She tells him things now she wouldn't dare to before, for fear of his rejection. The defeat that would've come from starting over again. (The Colonial government was large then. There were a handful of small, crucial places that could have been crawled into. Dr. Baltar, of course, wasn't the first try. He was only the success.)

Things are different now. She knows he is keeping a tally somewhere in secret, since the last president disappeared and left her marker board. Sixty-one more are dead, and he breathes softly and doesn't ask for names. The fact of his birthday is random. Under satin he kissed and worshipped her. They are not playing God, not really. (This is honest. They are playing chaos and coincidence. They are _not playing_.)

She tells him, "I want to give you my soul."

They're in a calculated cuddle stage when she says it, the kind where his energy is almost spent and she is subtly gauging -- a light touch there, a gentle grind -- if he will go one more time. She says, "Listen, Gaius. My soul belongs to you now. When you're with me, I want you to feel like you're holding it in your hands. Like a bead of light. The way you'd hold a child."

Sharon thinks that Caprica-Six has gained an offbeat, genuine charm that comes from being an individual (who has a name she did not give herself, and now shares it with a freezing planet of people, some of whom know they're waiting to die). Gaius is charmed. He says, "Um." He smiles because he is innocent (irresponsible) and grabs at her waist. "You're speaking in metaphor, I take it?"

"Yes. And I want you to give me yours."

A slight hiccup in his touch, she feels it. But he says, "Yes."

She imagines it feels like the night he slept inside her for a few hours, before waking and removing himself. A small deflated piece that meant the world to him. She says, "Thank you." She hasn't decided what to do with it.

Some people (survivors) are still happy here. She believes Gaius is not. She believes he quietly trembles next to her in the middle of the night, cold and afraid and wishing to be kept alive. The calmer, bitter figment is gone. When the real one asks her "Why didn't you kill me?" (which he's found more than one occasion to) it is mostly gratitude. There is an answer he wants, uneasily, hopefully. _Because I love you, Gaius_. He's begging to be loved in a way he understands.

He is safe inside her. This is dishonest. He is never safe. He will die, because he lives.

Deep down she knows that this planet with her name (it was created by democracy and crazy people, it believes it is a home) will become too much. Even Sharon has started to hate it, and no one clings to this near-extinct race like she does. The truth seeps into Six's dreams. If God has brought Gaius back to her, it's because God still means for him to die with her.

But she is learning to imitate something else (this is being an individual) -- the thing she felt on Caprica, which is the namesake of a prison now, the namesake of hope (slim hope) and broken machines. She hasn't decided what to do. This is human (irresponsible). There is nothing in her hands but metaphor. She doesn't know if God brought him back.

For a moment in that house, just before the window shattered and black orange sky poured in, she knew she felt the nature of being alive. _Please not yet_.

She chose time over mercy. It was not God's will. It was chance.


End file.
